Traditionally, medical examinations and treatment have been conducted in individual rooms containing specialized equipment or instruments. Consider, for example, the cases of dental or ophthalmic care. The patient is usually placed on an examining table or chair within a room containing the specialized equipment, and is then prepared for treatment. A waiting period follows to allow anesthetic or the like to take effect, after which treatment is administered with the aid of the specialized equipment in the room. Following treatment, the patient is allowed a period for recovery before leaving the room, which must then be prepared to receive the next patient.
This technique is wasteful from the standpoints of both doctor's time and equipment utilization, and limits the number of patients which can be treated within a given period of time. The use of multiple examination rooms, however, involves duplication of expensive equipment.
In an effort to solve these difficulties, there have been several attempts to mount a single piece of equipment for use by multiple examination rooms. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,470,871 to Shoen discloses a multiphasic screening laboratory for conducting medical examinations wherein medical instruments are supported on a track extending overhead between triangular examining rooms arranged in a circle around a central core area. U.S. Pat. No. 3,911,900 to Shoen discloses a rotating medical instrument package for placement between opposed examining rooms. U.S. Pat. No. 3,395,500 to Smith discloses a dental office floor plan in which multiple patient chairs are provided on a rotatable platform. These approaches, however, have been impractical for various reasons.
A need has thus arisen for a new and improved medical office construction wherein the doctor and his/her equipment are mounted for linear movement between plural patient examining rooms.